Living Life As A Game: Through And Through

The moment she awoke, before she could even say anything, Jane"s arm was already around her shoulder. Whilst she was pulled over to Jane"s side, Elizabeth heard Jane say, "G.o.d d.a.m.n, I didn"t expect you to have a double, triple, h.e.l.l maybe even quadruple life! Just where do you find the time to practice everything!"

Elizabeth didn"t struggle to speak as Jane wasn"t being excessively forceful and though she was uncomfortable being pulled around w.i.l.l.y nilly, she didn"t bother fighting off the excessively playful Jane as she said, "Mhmm… Maybe I"ll tell you some other time. When we aren"t surrounded by nosy busy-bodies..." In all honesty, she didn"t mind sharing some of the more ridiculous information about her history with Jane. Even Sun was fair game with his Forever Loyal Affection Rating, but right now was not the time to be talking about her status as Chosen for the impending Cataclysm.

"Mhmm?" Hearing her respond seriously, Jane took the hint. She stopped with her excessive play fighting and let Elizabeth settle back into her seat as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small stack of talismans. Sun had already pulled out a similar stack of papers and after handing his stack over to Jane, Jane presented the now sizeable stack to Elizabeth.

Confused, Elizabeth took the talismans and instantly recognized the Enchantment inscribed on them to be Storage Enchantments. She asked, "What"s with the papers?"

This time, it was Sun"s turn to say, "W-we decided to make a small gift for you… You know, after everything you"ve done for us, we met up in the Eastern Forest during our, uh… time off, and picked a few things out for you."

As Sun"s words faded and he sat back down whilst doing his best to conceal the red blush that had sp.a.w.ned from sheer embarra.s.sment, Jane brushed off his explanation by saying, "Yeah, what he meant to say is that when we weren"t cheering for you in your events we each came up with the idea to go hunt for Wild Beasts in the Eastern Forest. After seeing each other a couple times. I told him my plan and you wouldn"t believe how fl.u.s.tered he got, taking a whole three minutes stuttering as he tried to tell me that we were doing the same thing. Anyways, after we teamed up and hunted down a couple dozen monsters, we bought a couple things you seem like you might need and put them in these talisman papers."

"Gifts huh?" Elizabeth stored the talismans in her spatial ring discreetly as she said, "Thanks," and thought about what to give them in return. Looking at Jane"s current outfit, she noticed Jane actually donned a sword! Curious, as she had only sparred with Jane through Muay Thai, Elizabeth asked, "You"re a swordsman?"

Giving off a conflicted expression, Jane held onto her sword as she said, "Yeah… Even though I"ve spent many years in the dojo practicing Muay Thai, I first learned how to fight with a sword whilst under Jhan"s possession. Although I hate to admit it, fighting with a sword is much easier and effective for me, than regular hand to hand combat."

"Cool, I guess you can take this, then~" Without batting an eye, Elizabeth materialized the treasured Evergreen Copper Sword she forged for the Final Stage of the Forging Event and presented it as a return gift for Jane. In her other hand, she materialized the three Time-type Enchantments she created as she practiced whilst waiting for the results of a different Stage in the same Forging Event. Offering those to Sun, Elizabeth said, "These are called Slow Enchantments. If you"re ever in a dangerous situation, tag yourself with one and activate it with a bit of Neutral Qi. It won"t help much since I created these with my current cultivation base and no special materials, but it should improve both your reaction speed and movement speed by a couple percentage points for a couple minutes."

Awkwardly, both Sun and Jane took Elizabeth"s gifts, each feeling ashamed as Elizabeth somehow managed to return spontaneous gifts much more valuable than their combined gifts with nary a hint of effort. It was like they gave her a piece of candy and she returned the gesture with a bucket of sweets.

Still, neither Jane nor Sun declined her gift as they would be foolish to turn down such boosts to their combat prowess right before the Martial Event. They also didn"t want Elizabeth to feel distant by not accepting her gifts, when they understood the relative ease with which Elizabeth procured the gifts she offered. Ever thankful, the two put away Elizabeth"s gifts before sitting down and making some small talk as they waited for the p.a.w.n Stage division of martial pract.i.tioners to complete their second Stage.

At the moment, even though the Martial Event had started, there was no one in the compet.i.tor area. The reason being that, the First Stage of the Martial Event would begin outside of the Principle Tournament Arena. The first stage would see all the compet.i.tors, in each division, enter a Testing Formation in the other Tournament Arena located just north of the Tournament Square; the same one that held the Beast Taming Event.

There, the relative fighting prowess of all the compet.i.tors in one division would be a.s.sessed and the chart for the Second Stage of the Martial Event would come together. The Second Stage being a smaller Tournament-esque arrangement where compet.i.tors would fight one on one battles to decide their rankings in their divisions, would end with a winning pract.i.tioner for every Stage of the Mortal Realm.

It took well over half an hour for the p.a.w.n Stage compet.i.tors to make their way back from the Northern Arena. Then, as they had their tournament, the Soldier Stage compet.i.tors were told to go to the Northern Arena to fill in the empty Testing Formations. It was very difficult for Elizabeth to pay attention to the p.a.w.n Stage compet.i.tors" battles as she would gain absolutely nothing by watching those much weaker than her fight. Even if there were p.a.w.n Stage pract.i.tioners with years more experience than her in martial arts, by the very nature of her superior strength, she would outcla.s.s them in technique. It was the very same reason why skills would catch up to her current level and then increases at a heartbreakingly slow pace; not just her, but the same could be said for all cultivators.

For the p.a.w.n Stage compet.i.tors, a whole hour and a half was consumed as they made up the majority of compet.i.tors at 6,150 or so partic.i.p.ants. Because the Testing Formation was rather accurate, a compet.i.tor unsatisfied with their ranking would usually only fight one or two fights to solidify their ranking as it would be stretching their limit to not only fight someone with a higher score, but also after pa.s.sing through a couple battles beforehand. Moreover, most people would be content with their ranking, thus allowing for thousands of people being processed so quickly. After all, not everyone was a supreme cultivator that jumped Phases and Stages like Elizabeth and her cohort of Extreme Path peers.

After the p.a.w.n Stage compet.i.tors finished their tournament, those confident in their chances to rank up in the Soldier Stage compet.i.tors" tournament were more than ready to begin fighting, as it had been well over an hour since they had finished their First Stage. With the Soldier Stage compet.i.tors beginning their tournament, Elizabeth was finally called on to move with the other Warrior Stage pract.i.tioners and be tested for her division"s First Stage.

Bidding her friends goodbye, Elizabeth left even Sun behind as he had already broken through to the King Stage. Now focusing on the path of extreme physicality, he didn"t need to have a perfect or even pseudo perfect Spiritual Parameters. Instead, by just keeping his physical parameters at least one Stage ahead of his current cultivation base, he could continue breaking through to higher and higher peaks of strength.

Thus, Elizabeth made her way over to the Northern Arena. Lamenting the decision to pick a surname that began with an "U," Elizabeth also cursed the idiots who organized the Events and had everything alphabetized. Even though the bulk of the compet.i.tor base was made up of the weaker ranked martial pract.i.tioners, she still had to sit through thousands of other Warrior Stage pract.i.tioners being a.s.sessed since even if they only made up a measly 15% of the total, that still amounted to around 2,250 compet.i.tors…

Fortunately, in the Northern Arena, there were dozens of Testing Formations set up which allowed for thousands of compet.i.tors to be processed extremely quickly. Unfortunately however, the stronger the cultivator, the longer they would take to be properly a.s.sessed by the Testing Formation. This resulted in the p.a.w.n Stage compet.i.tors taking the same amount of total time to be processed as the Solder Stage Division, and even now the Warrior Stage was approximated to end at a similar time.

Eventually, it was Elizabeth"s turn to be a.s.sessed. Though she had never used a Testing Formation, she had seen others be directed with its use several hundred times by now. So, without anyone prompting her, she walked into the formation and sat down in a meditative position.

After feeling a foreign energy jolt her soul, she felt the entire world change as if day and night were one pull of the lightswitch away. No longer in the middle of a tournament arena sitting in a formation, Elizabeth found herself in an empty void that seemed to span an infinite length in every direction. Suddenly a booming voice said, "Time remaining: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… p.a.w.n Stage, Begin!"